A Tale Of One City
by meltedpoo
Summary: There is the red string of fate and then there's life. Hijikata is a prince who could only look at the kid with snow-white hair. (Set of drabbles)
1. Snow Kid

**Title: **A Tale of One City

**Summary: **There is the red string of fate and then there's life. Hijikata is a prince who could only look at the kid with snow-white hair. (Set of drabbles)

**Disclaimer: **I cry every time I look at Hijikata. Also, I do not own Gintama.

**A/N: **Let us share a drink in cheers to my sentimental mood swings.

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**A TALE OF ONE CITY**

_Once upon a time there was a prince whom the prophets predicted would do great and noble things. In his step-mother's jealousy, he was locked up high in the tower after his father, the great King, died. Provided with clothes, books, toys and everything that a prince could want, he told himself that he _should _be happy. But he knew we wasn't; for the one thing he wanted the most, he could not have. _

ooo

**Set 1**

Every day the young prince looked out the bars of his tower and every day he saw the world change. People, he noted, were always running about and rarely, if ever, appear in one place twice. He saw the commoners in their daily errands in the market, saw the children playing and fighting in the side streets and he wanted to reach out to them and play with them. Perhaps, he fancied, if he were there he could solve whatever it was they were arguing about. Perhaps, if he were there, he could have made many friends. Perhaps he could have made other people happy. Perhaps he, too, could have been happy.

Every day, too, the prince grew sadder and sadder for the world was changing and while he was there to witness it he wasn't there to take part in it. Searching for the one thing that remained constant in that limited view of his, he saw a young kid. Sullen, almost bitter, he stood out because of his curly white hair. Every day he was there and every day the prince saw him and the prince was sad no more for, small though it was, he now found the one thing that he knew would always stay the same.

**Set 2**

The prince felt that he was friends with the kid. The kid may not have known it, but the prince saw him every day and what was that if not mutual friendship? The young prince followed the snow-haired kid every day and laughed with him and shared his grief when he was walking quite alone in the streets.

It was a happiness, but one that also gave him melancholy for he knew that the snow kid (for so was his nickname for the kid) had no idea he existed.

**Set 3**

Sometimes he would be with two other kids, one with long hair and the other with the same bitter expression as he. Sometimes, too, he was with a man who the prince assumed was the snow kid's dad although they looked nothing alike from what he could see in his tower.

He saw that the snow kid was always smiling when he was with his dad and the prince felt happy because his friend was happy and sad because he could not share it. He missed his dad, little though he remembered of the great king.

These were the only times when the prince wanted to cry when looking at the snow kid.

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**A/N: **Someone welcome me to the HijiGin fandom. A box or two of donuts will do. Thank you.


	2. Connotations

Chapter 2 – **Connotations**

**Disclaimer**: An AU where Hijikata is a high school recluse and still hot as fuck also, if Gintama was mine, it would be sappy as hell.

**A/N**: I'm sorry for disappointing you, guys :(

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Thanks for the donuts, friends. (I really love donuts, you know)

**Set 4**

"What is wrong, Gintoki?"

Gintoki had stopped on his tracks abruptly. He looked around while rubbing his neck. There it was again. That odd, prickling sensation on his neck, as if something was biting him repeatedly. It had been two weeks since he first started to get the feeling and it was really starting to bother him. He could be showing signs of a cold but he wasn't feeling weak or dizzy, just _really_ unsettled. He had refrained from telling this to his master for fear that it really was a symptom of some illness or other and he wouldn't be allowed to play outside. Katsura and the others had never been sick once and Gintoki did not want to be the first one to do so and end up being the receiving end of their insults.

"Shouyou-sensei..."

"Hmm..?" His master crouched down so that they were at eye-level.

"Say, for example, you get this prickling feeling in your neck, it's just an example, you're not sick or anything, are you?"

His master smiled, "Just an example, eh?"

Gintoki nodded vigorously, "An example."

"Hmm..." his master stroked his chin and looked up, pretending to contemplate the question. Gintoki's throat felt constricted. He prayed that he wasn't sick. "Gintoki, you are a very lucky person."

"Lucky?"

"When you feel like you are being bitten in your neck, it means someone is looking out for you. Someone who really cares, someone far away. When it's in your hands, someone wants to know how your fingers would feel on their head. When it's in your ears, someone is signing for you. When your nose itches, someone is kissing your picture. When your heart aches, you could be in love. When you feel all these, your feelings are being reciprocated."

**Set 5**

Hijikata lied down on his bed and stared at the stone ceiling of the tower. A book was open face-down on his chest. The prince sighed and recited the words that had marked the end of a chapter in the story, "neck is for protection, hands are for feelings, ears, for music, nose signifies kisses, love is centered in the heart and all of them combined is receiving what you are giving..."

**Set 6**

Gintoki looked around the town, turning his head left and right while walking. To outsiders he would have looked lost but the truth was, he was searching. Shouyou-sensei had told him that someone out there, far away, was looking out for him and he wanted to meet this person. He wanted to know why he, of all people, caught that person's attention. He wanted to thank that person and make him feel a tingling on his ears. Gintoki wanted to know what kind of person he was.

"_Shouyou-sensei had said 'far away'..."_

Gintoki sat down on a rock and looked out towards the mountains that lay north. Was that person living in the mountains? Gintoki shook his head. The mountains were too far away. Nobody could possibly know him there. The castle then? But why would any royalty want to protect him? He growled in frustration. He was happy that someone was looking out for him, but not knowing put him ill-at-ease.

_'What kind of person could he be?'_

**Set 7**

Gintoki looked up as someone cast a shadow in the doodle he was drawing on the sand. A group of men, faces hidden in their wide straw hats, stopped before him. The biggest one among them spoke up.

"Are you Shouyou's student?"

Gintoki stood up to his full height and glared at them, "What do you want from Shouyou-sensei?"

The same one who spoke nodded to the person beside him. He took out a letter from his sleeve and handed it to Gintoki, "Give this to him. Tell him we'll be operating 3 days from now."

**A/N**: I don't want them to meet yet xc


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